


Inversion

by honey_in_the_lion



Series: Inversion AU [1]
Category: Hannibal Lecter Series - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-04
Updated: 2017-09-04
Packaged: 2018-12-23 17:14:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11994324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honey_in_the_lion/pseuds/honey_in_the_lion
Summary: Clarice Starling and Hannibal Lecter role reversal AU.  Takes place in Hannibal TV verse after season 1 episode 5.  Right now it's a oneshot, but I might write more stories in this verse later.Serial murderer Clarice Starling, once a shining star of the FBI, is now imprisoned in the Baltimore Hospital for the Criminally Insane.





	Inversion

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I paraphrased and borrowed a part of Hannibal and Clarice’s dialogue from the SOTL novel in the end. There are notable differences since it's TV Hannibal and I doubt he would be asking the things that novel Hannibal would. This fic was a little difficult for me since I don’t consider myself to be very good at dialogue, both in writing and every day life. I haven't religiously edited this fic so there might be writing/voice problems.

In the dreary gray of the basement of the Baltimore Hospital for the Criminally Insane, Hannibal Lecter found himself across a startling pretty and intelligent young woman.

Death Angel Clarice Starling, the tabloids called her.

Clarice Starling, convicted murderer of 7, and killer of serial murderer Jame Gumb, known by the public as Buffalo Bill.  That was only counting the ones that the FBI knew of.

Up until her incarceration, Clarice had been a brilliant agent at the FBI. Her teachers constantly scored her at the upper tier of the top 5% in all areas. Her discovery and murder of the high profile serial killer was just a cherry on top.  She was the lioness to Will Graham’s hound in Jack Crawford’s pack.

It was this same lauded intellect and ability that allowed her to go uncaptured for years.  Although Hannibal had long wished to interview her, his motive for his visit today was...a little more personal.

An orderly offered to take Hannibal’s coat when he entered the front office, which he politely declined.  The man mentioned that the director was out at the moment, but would be back very soon and let him into the hospital director’s office.

Hannibal was left standing in the middle of the office and gave only a cursory glance at the gold plaque reading “Dr. Fredrick Chilton”.

The director’s office of the hospital was a room furnished considerably in contrast to the bleak grays and greens of the mental institution.  On the wall hung many academic achievements in their ornate frames and waxy parchment, lauding the director with many degrees and accomplishments.  This too, Hannibal only spent a few seconds glancing through.

The door behind him creaked.  The same orderly from the front office opened the door for in a small, short man with oily hair that reminded Hannibal of a certain pigment secreted by the gall bladder.

“Are you Hannibal Lecter?”

“Dr. Hannibal Lecter.”

“I’m Dr. Fredrick Chilton, director of this hospital.”

Although the man emphasized on the doctor, in the short five minutes Hannibal spent conversing with Chilton in his tasteless office, he learned that the man had no medical degree at all.

“I can see why they sent you,” Chilton tugged his cuffs, his beady eyes narrowing at Hannibal’s tailored designer suit.  “Starling rarely gets to see anyone so put together, not in this place.  I’d rather not go down myself, you see.”

Hannibal only gave the man a nod.  “I’m certain you have your reasons.”

“Indeed I do, she’s a terribly disturbed woman.  You wouldn’t expect it, not from such a pretty face.  But it’s so rare to get my hands on someone like her, alive.  A female serial killer.”  Chilton beamed.  He reminded Hannibal of a schoolyard boy showing off a prized possession - odious.  “She’s housed in the basement ward, where the worst go, under maximum security.

Chilton opened the door to his office, leading Hannibal down the hall to where they would take an elevator down to the lower level, his chatter never stopping as he spoke of all of his cases in the hospital basement.

Hannibal had little interest in Chilton’s collection quest of the vile and sick.  Upon exiting the office, his fingers skillfully picked a business card off of the large wooden desk and whisked it into his suit pocket in one fluid motion; Chilton none the wiser.

\---

The heavy steel of the gates lowered, making a clattering noise upon contact with the cement floor.  Hannibal turned to face Chilton as they reached the basement cells that held the hospital’s more infamous inmates.  “Thank you Dr. Chilton.  However, I believe it would be best if I faced Miss Starling by myself.”

Chilton stiffened for a moment, before amicably holding out his hand.  “You should have told me earlier, I would have sent you with an orderly.”

Hannibal knew, much to his distaste, that the slick shine of the man’s hand was from lanolin.  He grasped it for a moment, holding it only as long as society dictated acceptable.

The moment Chilton turned around, Hannibal unfurled his handkerchief from inside his jacket, wiping off the oil in a practiced motion.  He then carefully folded the handkerchief and placed it in his pocket opposite to Chilton’s business card.

At the door to the basement stood a different orderly and a prison guard.  A nametag with Eric printed on it, gleamed in the fluorescent light of the ceiling lamps of the orderly’s work uniform.  Chilton had sent a message ahead of time, thankfully, and Eric was waiting to let Hannibal in.

“Walk straight in the middle.”  Eric instructed, his voice reedy in the cool air.  He led Hannibal down the hall, the prison guard bringing up the rear.  The basement’s ambient atmosphere, contributed partially by the lights within the cells, cast a dim blue against the cement and glass.  “They’ll shout and scream as you walk by, it’s nothing personal.  The cell you’re looking for is at the end, to the left.  Don’t hand her any pens, she has her own.  Make sure any paper you hand her is free of any metal.  Don’t go near the glass, don’t touch the glass, or we will have to escort you out of here by force.  Do you think you’ll need a chair?”

Hannibal appreciated the man’s courtesy and affirmed that he, indeed, would require a chair.  Eric walked to one of the lockers at the end and pulled out a folding chair.

As he took a seat, Hannibal observed Clarice in her cell.  She kept her back turned to him as she occupied herself with a magazine, seemingly unaware of his arrival.  Books, periodicals, and newspapers were piled on the edge of the desk bolted to the wall, as well as the head of the sleeping cot.  Mail was scattered to the corner, an afterthought.

The thick partition of solid glass that separated the woman from Hannibal reminded him of a specimen box for insects.  Clarice’s fiery hair, incapable of being dulled by the atmosphere of the prison, shimmered like the vibrant color of butterfly scales.

He sat there, for a moment, observing her.  When it became clear that Clarice had no intention of acknowledging his arrival, he spoke up.  It was quieter at this side of the ward, carrying his words clearly.

“Hello Clarice Starling, I am Doctor Hannibal Lecter, may I speak with you?”

The woman smoothly closed the magazine in her hand and set it down, next to the letters and books.  With a practiced twist, she turned to face him, her arms and legs crossing.  Clarice Starling sat as if she were in her office at Quantico instead of in a tiny harshly lit supermax unit.

“Hello. Dr. Lecter.”  There was a slight ghost of Clarice’s southern accent in those words, dripping a barely concealed amusement in the way she spoke his name.  Her stare seemed to weigh him from the other side of the glass, glinting with a great intellect. “Are you here to poke around my head like everyone else?”

“Only if you wish me to, Clarice Starling.” Hannibal kept their gazes locked, speaking her name softly.

Clarice tilted her head.

“If you're not here to deconstruct me, then what are you here for?”

“My own interests and personal research.  I read your paper in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, Clarice, it is brilliantly written.”

A snort.  Clarice leaned back, her hand brushing her vibrant hair back casually.  “I’m amazed, Doctor.  Exactly how much research have you done on me already?”

“Not much. I’d very much prefer to speak with the genuine person.”

Silence.  Then Clarice began to tap her fingers, as if thinking.  “Personal is it?  Dr. Lecter, what reason do I have for answering any of your questions?”

This time, Hannibal graced Clarice with a small curve of his mouth.  “If you so happen to wish for a fairer method, perhaps we could do a quid pro quo, Clarice?”

The silence returned, and they sat in mutual solitude.  Clarice pondered for a moment, her tapping resuming. Next to her, lay the last month’s copy of Vogue.

“You tell me something and I tell you something. But Doctor, what do you have to offer me?”

There it was. Hannibal kept his eye contact with Clarice and spoke in a measured tone.

“I may be able to bring in Will Graham for a visit, Clarice.”

Clarice pursed her lips, as if she found the idea unappealing.

“And how would you be able to do just that, Dr. Hannibal Lecter?”

“He is my patient, unofficially.  Some more recent cases have...upset him. I thought, since he has mentioned you before, that it might help him to center himself to see you.”

Clarice leaned back again, staring at her fingers. She seemed to ponder the offer for a moment.

“Dr. Lecter. Are you aware that the man who put me here was Will Graham?  What makes you think that I would have any motive to help him?”

“Because, Clarice, you were the one who surrendered yourself to him.”

Clarice exhaled through her nose and wrapped her arms around herself.  That was the one detail that both she and Will had left out during her surrender, left out during all of the court trials.  “How is Will?”

Pleased, the curve once again graced Hannibal’s thin lips.

“Not in the best shape, unfortunately.  Crawford has chosen to involve him once more in his quest for righteous justice.”

Clarice furrowed her brows.  Her last face-to-face talk with Will had been after her prosecution.  At that time, Will told her that he chose to formally retire from fieldwork, wishing to focus on teaching at the academy.  Did Jack attempt to replace her spot as Will’s anchor with this man in front of her?

How quickly does faith slip away, how weak is the material that trust is made of.  Gratitude, as Crawford liked to say, had a short half life.

“I see.  Your turn.”

“Why do you kill, Clarice?”

Silence.  Then the tentative shift of Clarice’s body as she straightened her posture.  “Dr. Lecter, I cannot fathom why you would ask that question.”

“Why do you think I wouldn’t?”

“I am sure my motives have been thoroughly examined and analyzed by the press and scholarly journals.  Journals, I am quite sure, that you read.”

“They only talk of simple minded speculation.  I doubt, Clarice, that your reasons are as banal as ‘man hating’.”

“What makes you think I don’t hate men?”

“You certainly don’t hate Will.  You tolerate Jack Crawford.”

Silence again.

“You’re right.  I don’t.”  Clarice laced her fingers together.  “I do it to silence the screams.”

“What screams, Clarice?”

“The lambs.”

“Why lambs?”

“What case is Will working on right now?”

“He just finished with the Angelmaker.  Jack has, for once, allowed him a moment of peace before plunging him head first into another gruesome case.”

“The lambs are from my childhood.  My mother sent me to live with my aunt whose husband owned a slaughter barn.  Do you think you could tell Will to stop, Dr. Lecter?”

“I believe Crawford already offered him that option.  He refused.”

“That-” Clarice stopped herself, her laced hands clenching in anger, as if offering prayer.  She grasped that anger, tamping it down with great willpower and used its edge to clear her mind.  “I apologize for that, Doctor.  Your question?”

“Why did your mother send you to live with your aunt?”

“My father died and there was too many mouths to feed.  There’s only so much you can do on a high school education.  What was the first case Crawford dragged Will into?”

“A missing girls case.  He believed they were being murdered, but lacked evidence.”

“And so he sought out Will Graham, thinking he could find the murderer even with the lack of evidence.  How did that turn out?”

“Badly.”  

There was a pause - one final time - as their conversation reached its end.  Without looking away, never looking away, Hannibal asked one more question.

“What, Clarice, was the memory that led to the screaming of the lambs?”

Like a thin stream, Clarice’s voice quietly slid through the glass partition, through the small holes in the barrier.  Any person other than Hannibal would have had to struggle to hear.

“When I came to the farm, I was happy.  I’d always loved animals and my aunt’s family treated me well.”

“You were happy, Clarice.  Until you learned they fed out animals for slaughter.”

“Yes.  The farm mainly fed out slaughter horses, although they did other animals depending on the season.  All of the horses on the farm were either sick or lame.  I hadn’t realized it at the time.

“I became attached to a blind mare.  None of the slaughter horses on the barn had names.  They don’t tell you when you’re feeding them out, so I called her Hannah.”

“What happened to the horse, Clarice?”

“We ran away.  It was summer, we could sleep out.”

“Did you lead her or ride her?”

“A little of both.  I had to guide her to a fence for me to climb on to ride her.  We rode out to a livery stable outside of town.  For 20$ a week, I could keep Hannah in the corral.  There was enough on me to pay for it but the owner’s wife called the sheriff on me.”

“What happened after?”

“My aunt decided to let me go.  They sent me to a Lutheran orphanage after.”

“Did they slaughter Hannah?”

“No, she went with me.  The orphanage was on a farm, they let her plow the garden.”

“Why did you run away with the horse?”

“They were going to kill her.”

“Did you know when?”

“No, but she was getting fat.”

“At what time did you set off with Hannah?”

“Early, it was still dark.”

“Something woke you.”

“Screaming.  The walls on the farm were pretty bad at keeping sound out and I woke to screaming in the dark.  They were slaughtering the spring lambs.”

“And this prompted you to run away.”  He spoke it as if it were a fact and not a presumption.  It irked her, but Clarice found herself unable to rebut his statement.

“Yes.”

“Yet you still hear them.  Are they in your dreams, Clarice?  Or do you hear them even when you are awake?”

“Dreams, mostly.”

“Mostly?”

“Sometimes I hear them even after I wake up, even though they couldn’t possibly be real.”

“And does killing stop these screams?”

“Depends.  If it’s just killing, no.  They stop when I save someone.”

“And then you’re free, for a time.  But later you find that you must do it again, to make them stop.”

“Yes.”

Hannibal leaned back, his face still with calm and at peace.  Clarice, given time to ponder, wondered what this man wanted.  He held no notepad, nor did he ever break eye contact with her.  He seemed too proper to wear a wire and Clarice could not see anything on him that would suggest such an instrument.  He didn’t even seem to carry a briefcase.

“Thank you, Clarice.”  There was warmth in the thank you that had not been present in their earlier conversation.  A good-humored crinkle appeared at the edge of his eyes.  A genuine smile.  “I will be sure to bring Will next time.”

Clarice watched from her side of the glass.  Watched as Hannibal stood and gestured to Eric.  Watched, as he gave her one last look as the guard led him away.  Watched long after the doctor’s silhouette vanished from the hellish basement ward of the Baltimore’s Hospital for the Criminally Insane.

**Author's Note:**

> I intended there to be a rather prominent previous relationship between Clarice and Will and played around with the timeline. Clarice graduated a few years after Will and was paired with him whenever his investigations needed reliable firepower. I'm still not quite sure whether or not to add Paul Krendler, though I've been thinking he might be the reason Clarice is caught. Since the TV series takes place in a more modern era, the glass ceiling isn't as oppressive as it is in the novel verse.
> 
> Clarice also ended up being more snappy than I expected, considering it's not like she needs to trade information for anything. I wanted a more assertive Clarice since I think spending time in prison after a while of being a special agent would make her more experienced and less naive.


End file.
